Associations between Dark Triad and Ambivalent Sexism: Sex Differences among Adolescents

The Dark Triad traits (DT; Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism) have been repeatedly labeled as a constellation of traits that are characterized by a dishonest and self-focused approach to interpersonal relations. Personality psychologists suggest that these traits make some people more susceptible than others to intergroup bias, threat, and aggression. Thus, in order to delve into a psychological profile prone to accepting and justifying sexist attitudes, the aims of the current study were to analyze the presence of DT and sexist attitudes in a sample of 367 adolescents (Mage = 15.12, SD = 0.88; 50.1% males), find out the relationships that DT has with both hostile and benevolent sexism, and analyze the relevant differences between sexes in these relationships. The results indicated higher scores in DT and Ambivalent sexism for males. The correlations of Machiavellianism with psychopathy, and psychopathy with narcissism revealed significantly higher associations in males than females. The structural equation modeling of the bifactorial model, characterized by a global latent factor that encompasses the common characteristics of DT—along with the three specific factors of Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism—showed that the global latent factor of DT was related to both hostile and benevolent sexism in males and females. Singularly, narcissism was related to benevolent sexism in males, and psychopathy was related to hostile sexism in females. Finally, this research discusses the implications of these results on the implementation of positive models of interpersonal relationships in adolescence towards dating violence preventionThis research was funded by Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports of Spain under the program “Ayudas para la formación de profesorado universitario” (FPU17/02607)S

Human Service Matters: A Cross-National Study in Restaurant Industry

Abstract The restaurant industry is becoming more important in generating income for many nations and hence the factors affecting the restaurant service performance need to be well managed. Therefore, this paper aims to explore and validate the importance of servicescape, human service, food quality and price from the customers' perspective. The restaurant customers in Malaysia, South Africa and India participated in the study. Duly completed structured questionnaires were collected. The study reveals that key determinants on satisfaction and loyalty were mainly human service and food quality

Effectiveness of the mantente REAL program for preventing alcohol use in spanish adolescents

Mantente REAL is a school-based universal program to prevent drug use and other problematic behaviors specifically designed to be implemented in schools at the beginning of adolescence. This program, which is a culturally adapted version of the Keepin’ it REAL intervention, focuses on skills training for resisting social pressure to use drugs and improving psychosocial development. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of Mantente REAL on alcohol use in the Spanish context. The sample was composed of 755 adolescents from 12 state secondary schools in Spain, aged 11 to 15 (M = 12.24, SD = 0.56), 47.1% females. The 12 schools were randomly assigned to control and experimental groups, six to each condition. Pre-test and post-test questionnaires data were collected to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. The results indicated that a culturally adapted version of Mantente REAL was effective in preventing alcohol use among youth from northern and southern Spain. Students participating in the program demonstrated changes in the desired direction on alcohol frequency and intoxication episodes. Implications of these results regarding intervention programs aimed at preventing substance use in adolescence are discussed“Mantente REAL” es un programa universal que utiliza la escuela para prevenir el consumo de drogas y otras conductas problemáticas diseñado específicamente para ser implementado en las escuelas al comienzo de la adolescencia. Este programa, que es una versión culturalmente adaptada de la intervención Keepin’ it REAL, se centra en el entrenamiento de habilidades para resistir la presión social para consumir drogas y mejorar el desarrollo psicosocial. Este estudio tiene como objetivo evaluar la eficacia de “Mantente REAL” en el consumo de alcohol en el contexto español. La muestra estuvo compuesta por 755 adolescentes de 12 escuelas secundarias públicas en España, de 11 a 15 años (M = 12.24, DT = 0.56), el 47.1% mujeres. Las 12 escuelas fueron asignadas aleatoriamente a grupo control y experimental, seis en cada condición. Los datos se recopilaron a través de cuestionarios antes y después de la intervención para evaluar la eficacia del programa. Los resultados indicaron que la versión culturalmente adaptada de “Mantente REAL” fue eficaz para prevenir el consumo de alcohol entre los jóvenes del norte y sur de España. Los estudiantes que participaron en el programa demostraron cambios en la dirección deseada en la frecuencia del alcohol y los episodios de intoxicación. Se discuten las implicaciones de estos resultados con respecto a los programas de intervención destinados a prevenir el consumo de sustancias en la adolescenciaThis study was funded by the Global Center for Applied Health Research (Arizona State University) and supported by the Programa de Axudas á etapa posdoutoral da Xunta de Galicia (Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria) and by FEDER/Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades – Agencia Estatal de Investigación (Grant PSI2015-65766-R) – under the Axuda para a consolidación e estruturación de unidades de investigación competitivas e outras accións de fomento nas universidades do SUG (GRC, 2018)S

Innate and adaptive immune assessment at admission to predict clinical outcome in covid-19 patients

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many studies have been carried out to evaluate different immune system components to search for prognostic biomarkers of the disease. A broad multiparametric antibody panel of cellular and humoral components of the innate and the adaptative immune response in patients with active SARS-CoV-2 infection has been evaluated in this study. A total of 155 patients were studied at admission into our center and were categorized according to the requirement of oxygen therapy as mild or severe (the latter being those with the requirement). The patients with severe disease were older and had high ferritin, D-dimer, C-reactive protein, troponin, interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels, and neutrophilia with lymphopenia at admission. Moreover, the patients with mild symptoms had significantly increased circulating non-classical monocytes, innate lymphoid cells, and regulatory NK cells. In contrast, severe patients had a low frequency of Th1 and regulatory T cells with increased activated and exhausted CD8 phenotype (CD8+CD38+HLADR+ and CD8+CD27-CD28-, respectively). The predictive model included age, ferritin, D-dimer, lymph counts, C4, CD8+CD27-CD28-, and non-classical monocytes in the logistic regression analysis. The model predicted severity with an area under the curve of 78%. Both innate and adaptive immune parameters could be considered potential predictive biomarkers of the prognosis of COVID-19 disease.Funding: This work was partially supported by the Cantabrian Government, grant number 2020UIC22-PUB-001, and by Instituto de Salud Carlos III, grant number COV20/00170

Immune Assessment of BNT162b2 m-RNA-Spike Based Vaccine Response in Adults

Vaccine efficacy is based on clinical data. Currently, the assessment of immune response after SARS-CoV-2 vaccination is scarce. A total of 52 healthcare workers were immunized with the same lot of BNT162b2 vaccine. The immunological response against the vaccine was tested using a T-specific assay based on the expression of CD25 and CD134 after stimulation with anti-N, -S, and -M specific peptides of SARS-CoV-2. Moreover, IgG anti-S2 and -RBD antibodies were detected using ELISA. Furthermore, the cell subsets involved in the response to the vaccine were measured in peripheral blood by flow cytometry. Humoral-specific responses against the vaccine were detected in 94% and 100% after the first and second doses, respectively. Therefore, anti-S T-specific responses were observed in 57% and 90% of the subjects after the first and second doses of the vaccine, respectively. Thirty days after the second dose, significant increases in T helper 1 memory cells (p < 0.001), peripheral memory T follicular helper (pTFH) cells (p < 0.032), and switched memory (p = 0.005) were observed. This study describes the specific humoral and cellular immune responses after vaccination with the new mRNA-based BNT162b2 vaccine. A mobilization of TFH into the circulation occurs, reflecting a specific activation of the immune system.Funding: This work was partially supported by the Cantabrian Government, grant number 2020UIC22-PUB-001, and from Instituto de Salud Carlos III, grant number COV20/00170

COVID-19 mRNA Based Vaccine Immune-Response Assessment in Nursing Home Residents for Public Health Decision

Nursing home residents (NHR) have been targeted as a vaccination priority due to their higher risk of worse outcome after COVID-19 infection. The mRNA-based vaccine BTN2b2 was first approved in Europe for NHRs. The assessment of the specific vaccine immune response (both humoral and cellular) at long term in NHRs has not been addressed yet. A representative sample of 624 NHR subjects in Northern region of Spain was studied to assess immune response against full vaccination with BTN2b2. The anti-S1 antibody levels and specific T cells were measured at two and six months after vaccination. 24.4% of NHR had a previous infection prior to vaccination. The remaining NHR were included in the full vaccination assessment group (FVA). After two months, a 94.9% of the FVA presented anti-S1 antibodies, whereas those seronegative without specific cellular response were 2.54%. At long-term, the frequency of NHR within the FVA group with anti-S1 antibodies at six months were 88.12% and the seronegative subjects without specific cellular response was 8.07%. The cellular immune assays complement the humoral test in the immune vaccine response assessment. Therefore, the cellular immune assessment in NHRs allows for the fine tuning of those seronegative subjects with potential competent immune responses against the vaccine

Meta search engine powered by DBpedia

The evolution of information retrieval technology on the web has led to the idea of semantic search engine in which it understands the meaning and the context of the search query. As a consequence, the search results returned by this type of search engine should match closely with the query. However, the Web is still dominated by Web 2.0 in which information and data is presented in an unstructured manner and is only fit for human consumption. Hence, building a semantic search engine is a very challenging task and there is still a lot of improvement that needs to be done to achieve the desirable results. As an example, if we search for "food that is not halal", existing semantic search engines still ignore the term of "not" resulting in inaccurate search. In view of this problem, this paper proposes a semantic meta search engine that utilizes the power of a traditional search engine (Google) and enriches the search result using DBpedia as the knowledge base to produce better results. This paper also describes the application of the knowledge base contained in DBpedia to deliver an improved search engine

Meta search engine powered by DBpedia

The difficulty of information retrieval on the web is proportional to the size of information available on the web. Nowadays infonnation on the web has grown to a size at which even a good ranking algorithm could not produce a precise search result. The disambiguation that exists between several terms gives challenge on how a search engine should produce a search result since traditional search engines work based on pattern matching rather than the meaning of the term being queried. On the other hand, semantic search engines search for concept that focuses on the meaning of the input query, rather than considering a query as a group of string. However, the Web is still dominated by Web 2.0 in which infonnation and data is presented in an unstructured manner and is only fitfor human consumption. Hence, building a semantic search engine is a very challenging task and there are still a lot of improvements that needs to be done especially infield of Natural Language Processing (NLP) to achieve the desirable results. Hence, this research proposes a semantic meta search engine that utilizes the power of a traditional search engine and enriches the search result by trying to understand the meaning of the search query. This is achieved by making use of DBpedia, an RDF triple dataset that is derived from structured information on Wikipedia which gives a huge graph of how concepts are related to each other. The proposed meta search engine takes into account the design of Yippy, a meta search engine that has of the ability to cluster search result into a group of topics that may be relevant to the query. This semantic meta search engine also uses Google to generate the search results of a given query, explores the meaning of the query using DBPedia andfinally displays the results in cluster similar to the technique used by Yippy. It also provides broad suggestions based on concepts that are related the query. The experimental evaluation showed that by using DBpedia dataset, the non-semantic search results can be clustered, rearranged and enriched with a certain degree of semantic. The proposed search engine is also able to provide suggestions on concepts that are similar to the query

Persoonlijkheid van kinderen met disruptief gedrag en de vorming van vroege therapeutische alliantie

Uit meta-analyses is gebleken dat er een positief verband is tussen therapeutische alliantie en behandelresultaat, met name uit studies naar de effecten van behandeling van disruptief gedrag bij kinderen. Een therapeutische alliantie vormt zich mede onder invloed van persoonlijkheidstrekken, terwijl ook is gebleken dat bijvoorbeeld psychopathische trekken behandeluitkomsten negatief beïnvloeden. Kinderen met disruptieve gedragsproblemen laten in het algemeen sterkere psychopathische trekken zien dan kinderen zonder deze problemen. Dit onderzoek met 44 kinderen beoogt de vraag te beantwoorden of de therapeutische alliantie een mediërende factor is tussen de mate waarin psychopathische trekken aanwezig zijn en de effectiviteit van een evidence-based CGT-behandeling van disruptief gedrag. Middels multipele regressie is onderzocht of deze trekken de afname van disruptief gedrag na behandeling voorspelden en of de therapeutische alliantie deze relatie medieert. Ouders en leerkrachten rapporteerden een significante afname van disruptief gedrag bij de na- en follow-upmeting (gemiddelde effect size (Cohen's d) = 0.31). Er werd geen significante relatie gevonden tussen enerzijds het niveau van psychopathische trekken en anderzijds de kwaliteit van de vroege therapeutische alliantie en afname in disruptief gedrag. Therapeutische alliantie bleek de mate waarin kinderen profiteren van de behandeling marginaal te voorspellen. Concluderend kan worden gesteld dat kinderen met disruptief gedrag kunnen profiteren van CGT, ongeacht de mate waarin ze psychopathische trekken vertonen. Aandacht voor de therapeutische relatie met de behandelaar kan mogelijk helpen het behandelresultaat te optimaliseren